What does it mean to be an educator in the 21st century?

  Long ago in the age of memorization and constant repetition, dinosaurs roamed the earth.  Today we live in a new age where technology has taken over the lives of educators and our students.  Why? How did this happen? Is it bad, dangerous, or will this help us improve as a society?  There are many varying opinions on this, but lets begin with question one: What does it mean to be an educator in the 21st Century?

            Educators are motivators, teachers, professionals, they are meant to be informative, resourceful, and responsible.  That is a timeless definition.  In today’s society they have more resources than ever, they have the Internet, smart-boards, and computer programs.  These types of resources, when used effectively, can greatly improve the quality of learning going on in a classroom. 

John David Son says “Technology has the power to capture our students attention by making learning interactive and fun. (Learning & Leading with Technologies pg. 8)” At Thornwood Public school students used the computer to translate bilingual students stories to English, to help them learn English literacy more efficiently.  (Dual Language Bookmaking). 

Technology is for more than just fun though.  College students featured the video Visions of Students Today say that technology allows them to multitask in a way that allows them to get all their work done and learn more (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o).  This is effective for them, when time management means more than it ever has before.  It means their future.

            Of course though with every positive there is a noted negative.  Technology is useful when used correctly.  David M Marcovitz says “Our scientific stimulation allow students to explore rich worlds, growing generations of plants, and animals in an instant, watching them die, changing the parameters and then doing it all over again.  The upside is tremendous, but don’t forget about the downside: attention. After seeing the flower bloom who has the patience to wait for it to bloom in real time? (Learning & Leading with Technology pg. 9).”  He makes a solid point, who does spend their time like that.  It is a fair time to ask oneself if you would endure that, would someone 100 years ago wait to watch that happen?  Then again with technology, is it fair to make someone put that much time and effort into waiting to learn something?  It is a goal to learn as much as possible in as little time as possible in today’s society.

            For teachers and students technology is a very effective tool to use to educate, interest, and build into children.  They do need to learn its uses to survive in our world.  It may or may not cause a short attention span, but when that attention span isn’t necessary in today’s society why worry about keeping it.  The order of values is always going to change, and if it truly is a completely necessary quality it will come back and thrive in future students lives.  In the mean time technology in today’s school systems is only improving education as we know it.

 

Works Cited

Is Educational Technology Shortening Student Attention Spans? Learning & Leading Technology. August 2008.  (pg. 8-9)

Dual Language Learning FROM: Cummins, J.,Brown, K., Sayers, D. (2007) Literacy Technology, and Diversity: Teaching for Success in Changing Times. Boston: Pearson

Mwesch. A Vision of Students Today. Kansas State University. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o).